


Hiraeth - Home is where the heart is

by Talesmaniac89



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Bad Parent John Winchester, Broken Childhood, Dean Winchester Angst, Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, F/M, Grief, Heartbreak, Heartbroken Dean Winchester, Hurt Dean Winchester, Sad Dean Winchester, ambiguous ending, implied reader death, lost relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24707806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talesmaniac89/pseuds/Talesmaniac89
Summary: Dean’s looking back on the summer he spent with you in his arms. A year has passed, summer is here again. But it’s a summer without you and, even in the sweltering heat of the bunker, he’s freezing to the bone.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Reader, Dean Winchester/You
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Hiraeth - Home is where the heart is

**Author's Note:**

> Hiraeth – a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was.

_Home_.

The word had always felt foreign and strange on Dean’s tongue. He had very few memories of the apple pie life others often referred to when they spoke of ‘home sweet home’.

He knew what it was _supposed_ to mean. At least he had once. Back when he was still a kid, when he still held onto the hope of settling down to a new normal after his mother’s death.

There’d been more than one shaky crayon drawing of four walls with a smiling sun and happy stick figures on a green lawn painted onto scrap paper in the back seat of the Impala as his father drove them from hunt to hunt during his early childhood years. A pair of young, naïve eyes catching the picket fences that rushed past on the other side of the window and dreaming of a home to return to.

He’d only had a taste of it, for the first few years of his life, before it went up in flames around him. His young eyes watching everything he loved burn as he held baby Sammy in his arms and his father fell to pieces next to him on the carefully manicured lawn. But for the next few years of his young life he’d always held onto the hope that he’d get it back at some point. Until he grew old enough to know better.

 _Home_ had never been his father’s goal. John Winchester had been driving towards revenge, not a better future for his boys.

So, after that, _home_ had always been the Impala, the guest room of a fellow hunter, and hell, even a few longer-term stays in ratty motels. Yet, none of them had fit right. They’d been houses, beds, and roofs over their heads, sure… But they were never a home. Not the way Dean thought a home should feel like at least.

By the time it was only Sammy and him, he’d long since given up the idea of home. It was just the two of them against the world. And the closest they’d ever come to having a place to return to was the safe confines of ebony steel and leather. With their initials carved into rear package tray of the Impala and the army man stuck in the ashtray. It hadn’t been much, but it was theirs. And with the entire world out to get them; it was all Dean had dared dream of.

—

They’d eventually found the bunker. And Dean had done his best to make it feel like a home for Sammy and him. It was as close to a home as anything else they’d ever had. Even if it was borrowed from a group of long-gone men and women in stuffy suits, Dean had made it _theirs_. For a while he’d even fooled himself into believing he’d finally come home. That the concrete walls of the bunker were all he ever really wanted.

But then she’d walked into his life. Fiery (Y/E/C) eyes had met his across the latest battlefield, and, _damn it,_ he’d realised he’d been fooling himself all along.

The bunker was just concrete and steel… A home needed more than that. A home needed warmth. And, even without anything more than vague memories, Dean had seen it in her eyes. With (Y/N) there, smiling at him from the chair she’d quickly claimed as her own, Dean had finally been home.

Once he’d realised, a strange kind of calm had fallen over the weary hunter. He couldn’t explain it, not really. But whenever he walked into a room and found her there, something ancient and _real_ at the very core of him would speak up and tell him that _this_ , this was it. This was what a home was supposed to be like.

It was supposed to be warm, and safe. Even in the middle of a damned apocalypse. It was a haven of smiles and shared moments. It was supposed to feel right, and slightly nostalgic. Like some long-lost dream that he’d finally found his way back to. Not just a bed to call his own, or a favourite chair in a living room. But _family and her_. That was home.

—

For the longest time, he’d just revelled in that discovery. Too afraid to shake the foundations of his newfound place in the world to let her know. Just drowning in her bright attentive eyes and pretending he was fine being just a friend, just a hunting buddy.

But then he’d gotten greedy.

He’d found his way home, and he wanted to feel like he belonged there. _Properly belonged_ , not just stuffed into some guest bedroom at the back of her heart. He didn’t want to be just a house guest that simply slipped into her mind from time to time. He’d loved her, and he wanted more.

He wanted to be her home, the one she went looking for after a hard day, just like he always did with her. So, he’d told her… Everything. He’d put his home and heart on the line. Though the words stuck in his throat and his heart beat so _fucking_ hard that he could barely hear himself speak. Dean had told her he loved her, just as the weather was getting warmer and the sun hung in the sky a little longer each day.

His heart in his throat and hands trembling as he waited for her to shut him out in the cold and make him homeless. But instead, she’d smiled at him. Throwing her arms around him and letting him drown in the apple pie sweetness of her lips against his. His arms had hesitantly wrapped around her, crushing her to his chest.

And hell, Dean had been _home_.

—

He could still feel the ghost of the happy laughter that had filled his chest and heart when she’d finally been his. Buried somewhere deep in his chest, hidden behind a million unshed tears and defeated, angry screams.

Dean had gotten a taste of what picture perfect was supposed to feel like for three short months that summer. But nothing in his life was meant to last. And, exactly a year ago, life had once more proved that anything he touched turned to rubble under his destructive fingers.

He should have seen it coming. Happiness always fled from the Winchesters. It was as certain as gravity. But, he’d fooled himself into believing that the world owed him a little slice of apple pie. That he could protect his home; though his family tree of death and destruction should have been enough proof to show him that he wasn’t meant for happiness. Heartbreak and loss were a part of his legacy, no matter how hard he’d tried to outrun it.

And _fuck,_ Dean had tried. Even if it went against everything he’d ever been taught. He’d been raised as a weapon, a soldier… He was a hunter, not a family man. His father had told him over and over again; to never settle down. A moving target was harder to hit.

He’d been raised knowing to never leave himself open or to stay in one place for too long. When strangers passing through his life had spent their evenings safe at home, he’d practiced how to protect his weak spots. Pulse points, heart, lungs, kidneys… By the time kids his age learned algebra, he was perfecting how to dodge, parry and kill.

Yet, his father had never told him what to do when his biggest weak spot was outside of his reach. When home was a person, not a place.

In all his years of training, Dean had never learned what to do when his heart was outside his chest. Shaped like a stubborn woman whom no number of blocks and parries could ever keep completely out of harm’s way. Still, he’d foolishly thought he could protect that part of himself too. That he could keep her safe and protect the home he’d finally found in her arms.

But nothing good was meant to last. Not for Dean Winchester. And reality had finally caught up with him, a year ago, to the day.

He’d already suffered through a full 365 days of missing her. And Dean knew it would never stop hurting. Even if he still clung to the memories of that one perfect summer. Of how she’d finally been his, after years wasted loving her from a distance. Every single second of those flawless three months was branded into his heart, stinging with pastel coloured clarity and bittersweet memories.

(Y/N) (Y/L/N) had been his home and now he was homeless.

—

Stepping into her room; he could still somehow smell the ghost of her perfume lingering in the air as he remembered how she’d bounced up and down, giddy with childish joy. Bare legs barely covered by a pair of lounge shorts and soft (Y/H/C) hair pulled away from her face as she held out the water balloons she’d picked up somewhere to help cool them down in the sweltering heat.

Dean remembered how he’d laughed, arms wrapping around her waist and lifting her out of the way to grab for the pack of balloons as she squealed happily in his arms. It had been one of the hottest days of the summer and he’d been drowning in the heat of the Kansas heatwave. But hell, he’d still not wanted to let go of her. Even as she squirmed in his arms and pouted adorably, pleading with him to join her for a water balloon fight, just to cool down at least for a little while.

It was one of the last happy moments he got with her. Hot heat, cool water and bright laughter that was still somehow etched into his skin, even a year later.

Now however, even the searing warmth of hot air trapped under layers of concrete felt chilly as he took a few shaky steps across her room towards her bed. Eyes downcast as he tried to avoid looking at the million little reminders of her. Dean was frozen, chilled to the bone. Without her, he’d never feel warm again.

Reaching for the picture frame at her bedside table, Dean sighed as his hand fell before even fully reaching the picture of him and her. She was smiling up at him, happy and unaware of the abrupt ending waiting for her. As bitter, angry tears stung in his eyes, he let his hands curl into weak fists at his sides as he sank back against her bed until he was crumpled on the cool floor.

He couldn’t avert his eyes from the reminders. They were everywhere. _She_ was everywhere.

He couldn’t explain what hit the hardest, or what he missed the most. It was a multi-layered longing. He wasn’t just _missing_ (Y/N). That word didn’t cover the depth of his heartbreak. No… He yearned for her, sure. He’d do anything to hold her in his arms and bury his lips against her (Y/H/C) hair as her laughter warmed the bunker. To feel her heartbeat under his fingertips and taste that apple pie happiness on his tongue once more.

But it was more than just that. Without her, nothing was right. The bunker wasn’t home anymore. It was just… Another pitstop. Another bed to sleep in between hunts. A prison cell filled with painful reminders. And even sitting there, in the middle of the room that had been hers, he felt homesick.

The bunker wasn’t his home. Not if she wasn’t there with him.

Nothing felt right without her there. The sweltering summer sun felt cold and artificial, and the days seemed to pass without Dean even noticing. Life wasn’t _real_ anymore. Even the little moments that had him smiling and laughing just one summer ago, now felt wrong, without her there to share them with him.

And she’d never be there again. She was lost…

 _No…_ Dean was the lost one. He’d lost his way home when her fingers slipped from his a year ago, and he’d never find his way back. The bunker was just concrete and a roof over his head, without her, nowhere would ever feel like home again.

He longed to be back with her, where his heart belonged. Where the very core of him lived. But she was gone, and he was left weathering a freezing summer in a cardboard box heart. Only returning home, to her, in the sporadic moments of sleep he sometimes managed to get. Whenever exhaustion or alcohol knocked him out.

It had only been one summer, but for that one summer, Dean Winchester had a place to call home. A place where he truly belonged. And it wasn’t picket fences or pies cooling on the windowsill that had been Dean’s place to come home to. It was a woman with bright attentive (Y/E/C) eyes and a laugh that warmed the very air he’d breathe.

For that short while, Dean had finally understood why people said home is where the heart is. And just as quickly as he found his way home; he’d lost it, when he lost her.

And he’d never be home again.


End file.
